The Shannara Chronicles: Changeling Show Only

January 20, 2016 9:11 PM - Season 1, Episode 4

Wil and Amberle prepare to leave for the Wilderun. However the Changeling continues to murder inside the palace and frames Eretria for the crimes.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome (7 comments total)

This was a nice pick-up in plot after the weak previous episode; plenty of cheesy action sequences, some great special effects, minimal Dud Dad/enslaver whatever guy, and more of the Changeling.

I found the Changeling's killing of the 'what _are_ you?' guy brutal and gross, which was the point, of course, but it stood out as the most violent, gross-out death we've seen yet of a human. Sort of Games of Thronian, actually..

They threw some sex in and I guess it was about time; although strangely they tried to showcase the kiss between the Changeling and it's 'master', too.

I actually am rooting for the bad guys in this thing.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 9:16 PM on January 20, 2016

It continues to be really hard for me to take James Remar seriously in a fantasy context. He seems like the guy at a medieval banquet with a thick New Jersey accent.
posted by lumpenprole at 11:48 AM on January 22, 2016

My Tivo recorded this episode again today - seems they're doing 'pop-up-video' style "Unearthed" rebroadcasts. With such scintillating trivia as "Look closely and you can see the cutouts on the gold clasps of Amberle's dress are actually griffins." and "Giant fans created the wind effect in this scene. While it looks cool, it resulted in dust and twigs getting in the actors' eyes." Yeah, not really tempting me into re-watching the whole thing for those kind of gems, but maybe some uber-fan out there will tumblrize any interesting bits.
posted by oh yeah! at 12:47 PM on January 23, 2016

And, hey, just noticed this thread has the wrong episode title, it should be "Changeling", "Reaper" is next week. Can the OP contact a mod to correct?
posted by oh yeah! at 12:58 PM on January 23, 2016

seems they're doing 'pop-up-video' style "Unearthed" rebroadcasts

Yeah, I've been treating those as a "how well does this episode stand up to re-watch" test -- so far not so badly, they're quite brisk and romping fun. An annoying number of the pop-ups are "Download the MTV app!" fluff, though.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 9:51 PM on January 24, 2016

And I did feel like this episode picked the pace up a lot after last week's somewhat saggy detour into the Rover camp.

Sheesh, though: you'd think that if "burn it and put the ashes in this urn" was that important, Allanon would have taken care of personally. But noooo, give it to an utterly unprepared elf to do; it'll be fine.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 9:55 PM on January 24, 2016

Mod note: Changed the episode name from Reaper to Changeling
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 5:41 PM on January 25, 2016